Today I chose to be salty

6/14/16

The headache persisted today upon waking up. I hate to be such a downer in the morning but the headache made even walking difficult. However it was really helpful as we drove out of Cusco to get to our two destinations today and in doing so I got to take a nice long nap, lulled to sleep by the rumbling of the bus.  We made one pit stop along the way to take a photo and to look at all the amazing mountains that make of the Andean Highlands. The high of these mountains are in the north of Peru but from outside of Cusco we could see about 6 snowcaps on three sides of us.

Our first stop was the collection of Salt Ponds at Maras used by farmers to evaporate natural hill water and farm salt. The ponds were on a mountainside and were filled by an aqueduct starting from inside the mountain. It was said that all of Peru used to be covered in a giant salt ocean, however when it receded, much of it was trapped within the mountain. We got to explore the farm by tightrope talking the small barriers of salt deposits that separated each pond from the next. There were a couple farmers working hard and being the inquisitive person that I am really wanted to see if I could get the experience of what they were doing. After walking for 15 minutes across the mountainside and almost falling in two salt ponds, I finally made it to a lovely women hacking away at a dried up salt flat. She was find enough to show me how to use her hoe to hack at the salt remains to help clear her bed for another flooding. She told me that she has been working in Kachi Wasi for years to support her 5 children. She works everyday from 10a-4p and it takes about 3 days for the ponds to dry out before you can harvest them. At this point I got to try out hoeing, which while fun, was hard work especially on the back and under the sun. On our way out we went to buy some of the salt for super cheap. Apparently rose salt is the finest top layer of salt, which can go for $20 in the US, but was about $2 here.

Our next and last stop was Chinchero a collection of circular cut depressions into the mountains. The depressions were within each other looking like an inverted circular pyramid. It was said that this area was specially because the pre-incan society’s recognized that each level was its own microclimate which allows for the growth of multiple different types of crops. We walked the perimeter of the whole base and even got to play around inside one of the shallower ones in the back. I’ll be sure to post photos!

We ended the day with a nice drive back to Lima, with me feeling much better as my headache faded and I was able to zone out for the bus ride back.